This invention relates generally to battery powered devices and, more specifically, to hand held portable mobile telephones with limited battery power supplies that become depleted during operation of the mobile telephone.
Portable battery powered devices such as personal mobile telephones that are manually carried by a person, as opposed to a so-called car telephone, are operated on a rechargeable battery power supply that becomes depleted during mobile use when not connected to an external source of power such as an AC/DC converter. It is known in battery powered devices such mobile telephones to provide a battery monitor circuit to monitor the level of remaining battery power available for telephone call making operations of the mobile telephone. A general display of the battery power remaining is made available upon actuation of an appropriate function key. When the battery power supply level has fallen beneath an absolute minimum limit, or depletion level needed to make or continue an ongoing call, then a special indication or warning is given of this low power disabled condition. Once this disabled condition is reached it is impossible to use the mobile telephone to make any calls whatsoever, including emergency calls.
It is widely recognized that a very important reason that mobile telephones are widely used is because of the added security they provide. The mobile telephones enable the user to make emergency calls for police, paramedic and fire fighting services and to make calls to private emergency numbers to parents, spouses and other family relations and to other numbers which one needs to call in the case of emergency.
In the course of creation of the invention, it has been considered that because people will often not monitor the level of the battery power supply and will also not carry a charged replacement battery, known mobile telephones have a serious shortcoming. It is possible for a mobile telephone user to find themselves in an emergency, including a life or death emergency, in which their mobile telephone is disabled because of operation of the telephone for non-emergency calls that depleted the battery power supply beneath the minimum absolute limit required to make any calls, including emergency calls. It is possible for a child or teenager provided with use of a mobile telephone solely for purposes of enabling them to call or receive calls from home or to place calls to other special emergency numbers, to deplete the battery during operation of the mobile telephone during non-emergency calls despite instructions to the contrary.
What is desired, therefore, is a way to allocate a predetermined reserve power level in a battery operated device.for emergency or pre-selected activity use. It is further desired to enable a more accurate battery level determination and use of said information for predetermined systems or apparatus activities.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved system, method and apparatus for monitoring power levels in a battery operated device.
It is also an object of the present invention to utilize the improved battery monitoring levels to allocate certain varying battery power to predetermined uses.
It is also an object of the present invention to allow for a user of a device to allocate the battery power for specific functions of the device that the user has chosen.
In accordance with the present invention the disadvantages of known battery powered devices such as mobile telephones and similar battery dependent devices are overcome by providing a reserve power allocation system, such as a mobile telephone and method of operation with an emergency call capability protector which inhibits the making of non-emergency calls under certain preconditions and also allows for user function selection based up battery level and usage criteria.
In accordance with the invention, one embodiment of the present invention is a mobile telephone having a battery power supply with a total power level that declines during operation, a means for performing a send call function, a means for actuating the send call function, a means to selectively make, both emergency mobile calls and non-emergency mobile calls while enabled by the power level being above an absolute minimum limit, a means for detecting when the power level decreases beneath an emergency call reserve level that is greater than the absolute minimum level, and a means responsive to the detecting means for inhibiting the send call function from making non-emergency calls when the power level decreases beneath the emergency call reserve level.
In accordance with the invention, one embodiment of the present invention is a mobile telephone having a battery power supply with a total power level that declines during operation, a means for detecting when the power level decreases beneath an emergency call reserve level that is greater than the absolute minimum level, and a means responsive to the detecting means for indicating the low power situation to the user when the power level decreases beneath the emergency call reserve level.
Accordingly, the invention also provides a method for protecting emergency call capability in a mobile telephone having a battery power supply with a total power level that declines during operation, means for performing a send call function, and means for actuating the send call function to selectively make both emergency mobile calls and non-emergency mobile calls while enabled by the power level being above an absolute minimum limit by performing the steps of detecting when the power level decreases beneath an emergency call reserve level that is greater than the absolute minimum level, and responding to the detecting means to inhibit the send call function from making non-emergency calls when the power level decreases beneath the emergency call reserve level.
Also, provided is a method for protecting emergency call capability in a mobile telephone having means for actuating a send call function to make both non-emergency and emergency calls, comprising the steps of distinguishing between an actuation of the send call function to make a non-emergency call and an actuation of the send function to make an emergency call, detecting at least one precondition for inhibiting non-emergency calls, and responding to the detecting means to inhibit the send call function from making a non-emergency call if the at least one precondition has been detected.